


Suspicions and Speculations

by uaigneach



Series: We Weren’t Meant to be Heroes [12]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alya Césaire Knows, Confused Alya Césaire, F/M, Poor Nino Lahiffe, Secret Identity, Secrets, Suspicions, THE BUILDUP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 13:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uaigneach/pseuds/uaigneach
Summary: Alya and Nino are getting suspicious. Their friends had been acting too weird for them to ignore anymore.Part 1 of the interlude before the official reveal fic





	Suspicions and Speculations

**Author's Note:**

> i swear i read over this one

After all the separate incidents involving odd behaviour from both Marinette and Adrien, Alya was suspicious. They had been hiding things ever since they’d begun dating, but now it was almost like they’d stopped trying to hide that they were keeping secrets. They were slipping too much for it to not be intentional.

Some things, she was able to explain away. Everyone knew that Gabriel was an awful parent, so it made sense that Adrien would spend a lot of time at his girlfriend’s house. And Adrien was a sweetheart and made Marinette happy, so of course the Dupain-Chengs loved and trusted him. Even Adrien’s athleticism made sense. He was a model and a teenage boy – of course he’d done free running. But Marinette? And her getting so good that she was able to pull off those stunts alongside her boyfriend? Date night was not a good explanation for that _at all_.

Marinette was also a fan of romance, but _her_ idea for a date night was CPR lessons? They could _not_ have already exhausted all the other options for dates in Paris.

Then there was the whole being prepared and willing to hold off an akuma while waiting for Ladybug and Chat Noir to arrive. They were normal citizens! It wasn’t their place to be heroes! And they just reacted at the sight of a butterfly. As far as she knows, Marinette and Adrien hadn’t ever exactly see an akuma up close. They were always mysteriously absent.

They’d both been oddly quiet about their opinions on Ladybug’s statement when they were harassed about the reporter’s death. Things just weren’t adding up anymore and Alya was sick of it. She was Marinette’s best friend – when had Marinette stopped confiding in her? Had she been distant since she started dating Nino?

She’d have to ask. She couldn’t trust her own biased judgement. So she did what she always did when she was afraid she was acting biased; go to Nino. He was god at thinking objectively. He was also good at catching things that she didn’t and would as such, provide her with a new angle.

She brought it up on their date night – not the best or most appropriate move, but at least she’d waited until after the movie to start speaking. “Adrien and Marinette have been acting weird lately.” She said, burrowing deeper into her boyfriend’s side. “Have you noticed?”

Nino took a moment to answer. “Yeah, I mean, I have a video. I’ve been meaning to show you.” Then he pulls out his phone and shows her Adrien clinging to a lamp post. “He’s been really tired lately, but his modelling schedule hasn’t changed. And you’re right, he has been acting weird and it’s not just because he’s tired.”

“There’s too many coincidences.” Alya agrees, showing Nino her own photo of Marinette doing unbelievable things. “Like, since when can she do that?” she grumbled as she flipped through her camera roll. Finally, she came across a longer video with the first frame being the inside of their gym. “Wait! Just watch this again. Those kinds of stunts are crazy!” she’d forgotten that she’d recorded the run through of the obstacle course, but she was glad that she did.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t remember just how crazy it had been. Not only did they beat the record that had held since the obstacle beginning, but they’d been showing off. It was rare to see either of them doing anything even remotely resembling showing off that made the moment all that much more important in uncovering the duo’s secrets. Watching that toss again was incredible.

“I know Marinette doesn’t weigh that much, but that’s got to take some extreme strength and endurance. There was no hesitation either.” Nino remarked as he watched the recovery of the toss. “Adrien’s built, but to pull that off Mari has to be as well.”

Alya nodded. “A couple lessons with a gymnastics teacher doesn’t do that. And gymnastics is pretty different from the free running they did on that obstacle course.” The duo sat in silence for a moment, staring at the gleeful facial expressions on the duo’s faces as they flipped about.

The video concluded with a final shot of Adrien and Marinette fist bumping at an arm’s length.

It took but a split second for Alya to make a ludicrous connection. “Wait… could it? No…” she launched herself off of the couch and rushed to her desk where her laptop sat. She pulled up the LadyBlog and pointed at the header image. She’d taken it about 2 months before the reporter fiasco and she was very proud of it. It was a clear shot of the infamous Ladybug-Chat Noir post-akuma fist bump.

They looked identical.

“Maybe they just saw it and thought that it was cute?” Nino suggested, although his face told Alya that he was troubled by this too. “They wouldn’t keep something like this a secret from us… right?” he sounded unsure. Their other two friends had been distant for a while. Puzzle pieces were beginning to fit into a picture that they weren’t sure they wanted to see.

“No wait, there’s more.” Alya insisted, balancing her phone beside the laptop as she pulled up another video. This time playing it simultaneously with the one on her phone. It was another snapshot of the now infamous toss – but this time, it was Ladybug and Chat Noir. The moves (and even the looks they exchanged beforehand) were identical down to the timing.

There was always the excuse that Adrien and Marinette just really intense in their admiration of Paris two heroes, but the video of Ladybug and Chat Noir was dated a week after they’d had the obstacle course run.

This… this wasn’t looking good.

 

“Do you think…?” Alya asked softly, allowing her question to trail off as she stared at Nino with wide eyes. She’d been searching for their identities since the very beginning, but now that she has the most solid lead since the beginning of her investigation, she found that she didn’t want to know. After everything that has happened… how could it not be them?

“I don’t know.” Nino said, his eyes fixed on the two videos. “But if we noticed all of this, doesn’t that mean that the others have too?” And wasn’t that an important question.

“Do we… do we bring it up with them? What if they don’t know…” Alya asked.

Nino shook his head. “They have to know something. The only ‘clue’ that they weren’t present for was the ‘floor is lava’ ordeal, and you said there were other people in the hallway with you.” He pointed out. The two stared at each other for a moment.

“We’ll bring it up tomorrow. One way or another.”


End file.
